I'm not really sure why, but ever since last night I've just had the strangest craving for sugar. So of course I was thwarted in my every attempt to get some until late this morning. The vending machine near the house in Yasu has been completely drained of all its tasty beverages, leaving only a select few brands of distinctly unsweetened canned coffee. And at home my choices for drinks are tea, tea, tea, water, and maybe beer. So no joy there either.

So I got up this morning still craving da' sweets, which made me really look forward to my morning bottle of grapefruit juice (I always buy one from the vending machine on the train platform). So I got my grapefruit juice, drank it, and decided it was the _best_ thing ever. But still, I needed more sugar, and rather resented not having bought anything else before I got onto the train, and almost ran to the machine at Hikone Eki once I had gotten off. It was then that I discovered that I had naught but 110 yen in my pocket (canned drinks are 120), which made me very bitter the entire bike ride to the Center. As soon as I got there I ran to the closet machine with a 1000 yen changer, and bought a can of sweet, sweet, draining the entire can in a pull. I then said something really really stupid, which made everyone in the room stare at me, and I do not feel like repeating it here.

Then I drank another can of coke and craved sugar no more (and no, my blood sugar was not low. That does not last ten hours, and would've been a lot more problematic had it persisted that long). I then slunk back to the vending machine and bought another soda, and refrained from saying anything even remotely stupid. Sometimes I think that the onus of being able to speak is simply more than I can bear.

I'm not precisely sure what nutritional component that I was short on that two cans of Coke supplied were able to supply me with, but that took care of my urges to consume sugar, which has not been the only food cravings I've had to deal with. I'm either lacking in vitamin C, or whatever you get from consuming citric acid, because I've been drinking a lot of grapefruit juice lately. I simply have to buy a bottle at the train station, and up until it ran out, I bought a can or two from the vending machine near home every day. Sometimes I'll get a bottle for lunch. If there was a grapefruit farm down the road, I'd probably stalk the trees at night.

Next time I come to Japan, I'm definitely remembering to bring my vitamins. It's embarrassing getting a restraining order issued against you by a citrus fruit. Anyway, I did do other things beside have weird cravings and stupid exclamations. I also gave my presentation on Hikone Eki today. Simply put, it could've gone better.

For startes, because of stress or whatever reason, I really didn't sleep last night. This morning I was lucky enough to get a seat on the train (the crowds have been thankfully light ever since school got out for the summer), and so tossed my backpack in the overhead rack, and sat down to go over my note cards for my speech. When the train got to Hikone, I set the notes down on the windowsill, grabbed my backpack, and happily meandered off the train.

So my speech did not go well at all, since taking advantage of my cards, I went with an elaborate and difficult to memorize speech, so bereft of my cards, it got really short and simple really fast. The Q&A session afterwards was much simpler, because I just had to answer questions about the station, and that also covered stuff I forgot in my speech. What I lacked in eloquent I made up for in informative. I just feel like a complete turkey for leaving my notes on the train.

Ah well, as I', fond of saying, these things happen.